What Mid-Career Changers Can Expect at Interviews and How to Deal with It

If you have not looked for a job recently, there are two developments that may surprise you: drug testing, and ethics and personality tests. Here are a few tips to keep you from getting flustered by these new developments.

Dealing with Drug Tests

You didn't take a drug test before your first job, and you may consider drug testing an invasion of privacy. Unfortunately, drugs are such a pervasive problem, employers are forced into testing. One of the companies recently started drug testing because the neighboring companies were doing it and word was on the street that his company didn't test. As a result, a deluge of drug users and pushers had made their way into his factory. When the company announced testing, a number of employees left and never returned. Those who remained were happy to see the improvement. The best advice is to be ready to take a drug test and understand the employer's need to give it.



Handling Ethics and Personality Tests

You may think it is tough to find a good job; it is just as tough to find quality employees.

Employers face an array of legal barriers that prevent them from getting important personal background information from prospective employees. If you were a hiring manager, you would be much more concerned than the prospective employee about the hiring process. A hiring manager may put their job on the line with each new hire. They have a great deal of responsibility. The person they hire can jeopardize the company's profits and can affect the working environment of other employees. Is it any wonder that employers are constantly looking for ways to make the process more successful?

Testing has gained popularity, because testing companies promise their tests will weed out bad job prospects. Today pre employment tests include ethical tests asking questions like this: "Have you ever stolen from an employer? Would you be tempted to use your employee discount for a friend?"

Pre employment personality tests may ask you questions about your decision-making process, your habits, and your values. They may also ask you about the habits in others that bother you, and why you are motivated to do what you do.

When you are presented with a test by a prospective employer, your best approach is to be as positive about the situation as possible (some employers judge your reaction to the test as closely as they evaluate your test results), and to answer the questions as honestly as you can. If you are ruled out for a job based on your test results, remember that it may be better for you in the long run. You probably would not have fit in with the company's style and it is better to find that out up front.

Let's step back a moment and look at why employers hold interviews. They are looking for proof of who is the best candidate. An interview is an opportunity to sell your skills. You sell by matching the needs of the company to your superior skills, proving that you are the best candidate.

Asking Questions and Controlling the Process

Now that you recognize you are selling, you need to under-stand the sales process. The buyer goes through a predictable process:

1. Rapport is built between the seller and the buyer. Each becomes comfortable with the other's integrity.
   
   
2. The seller looks for the buyer's specific needs.
   
   
3. The buyer looks for proof that his needs can be met.
   
   
4. The buyer makes a decision to act (makes the job offer).

As the seller, you want the action to be a job offer. Again, as a mid-career changer, your business experience works in your favor. You can relate to what is been said here. It means more to you, so you can more easily put it to work.

1. Building Rapport

By using your abilities to appear confident and to break the initial tension, you accomplish the first (and sometimes most important) phase of selling yourself. You begin to build rap-port.

2. Identifying Needs

Once you have built rapport, your next step is to understand the specific needs that must be met to get an offer. Again, look at the typical job interview.

3. Presenting Proof of Your Abilities

There are two things to remember for proving your value to the hiring manager. First, it is people who hire you, not companies. Relate the value or benefit of a specific skill in terms that will be meaningful to the individual interviewing you. Second, remember that the interviewing person really is not looking for the skill as much as the benefit that results from your possession of the skill. That means your story can't stop with a demonstration of the skill, it must continue until you have clearly illustrated the results. In John's story, he demonstrated the benefit by saying he found that people would do the agreed work and "invest the effort making your project a success" if they saw a positive reason for doing what they needed to do.

4. Getting the Offer

You should never ask someone to make a job offer if they do not have the authority, or if they have a commitment to interview additional candidates. They won't want to give you an answer, and if you push, you may blow a potential offer.

This means that you must qualify the situation before you take the next step. Before you close the interview, you must know three things.

1. You must know who will make the final decision.
   
   
2. You must know when the decision is going to be made.
   
   
3. You must know how the candidates will be evaluated.

The question "What is your decision process?" covers all three areas. Once you uncover the decision process, you can close the interview appropriately.